I'm back! Sqwashed my index finger last night, so couldn't type. sheesharee thx for letting me know how to post pics. I have done that process for another forum using photobucket. glad to know it will work here too. I'll try it later today......but ugh! my bathroom is ugly w/ the ivy wallpaper! -- a bit embarrassed to post pics! lv_r_golden - First, I DO have 3 boys like you......the girl came at the end to make "4" and the lady rules the roost!. Your input was insightful. btw, your home sounds lovely! I understand people favoring a more modern styles of decor w/ bright colors and clean lines-- watching shows on hgtv I do notice that it is the popular trend. But I live in a 100+ yr old home w/ much of the orig. trim. A more historical feel suits the building best. I was "Country" in the 80's (who wasn't? lol) and then "Victorian" for yrs but, sheesh! got sick of chintz after a while! I don't stick entirely to "theme" to the point where it feels gaudy and cluttered, but add what I like using the general "feel" I'm looking get. Comments made about my home by others include: "warm, comfortable, and cozy" and I'm happy to hear that. I'm glad so many nice posts followed yesterday. I feel very welcome now. Thanks to all! Will try to post pics later today.

Many thanks to everybody who answered, you have all been very helpful in clarifying my very muddled thoughts. Here is a hopefully clearer description of the situation: The house is a 50's ranch style, with 3 bedrooms and a hall bath (4.5x8.5 ft) clustered on one side of the house, and the kitchen, office/den and another hall bath (4x9 ft) on the other side of the house, with a great room in the middle. We plan to stay in this house as long as we can, but we are in this city for my husband's work, and if something happens (although unlikely with his kind of job), we know we'll have to move somewhere else; therefore, we'd like to make updates to the house while keeping resale in mind. Our (excellent) realtor said that for resale we should have an ensuite. After reading the comments, I have to clarify with him if he thinks a lack of ensuite will narrow down the market significantly, or if we 'simply' would not get the best price for the house. Most houses in the area are old (in the whole city actually), and we saw plenty without ensuites. We saw two of the neighbors' houses, and they did not have ensuites. This is what we considered: 1. Redo the bathrooms with the existing footprint (not that we have room to change anything inside), but we can go far into making them pretty, 2. Add a door from the master bedroom to the hall bath next to it, and close access from the hall. This I think would be a bad idea, not only because the people in the other two bedrooms will have to go across the house to the other bathroom, but also because the master bedroom will end up with windows on two walls, three closets on another, and two doors on the fourth side. Not restful. 3. Add another bathroom next to the master bedroom where the closets are, with one closet door transformed into a bathroom door. This bathroom would be 4.5x12 ft, although it could go to 5x12 if need be (but no more, because we'll hit a big window), which will have a shower but no bathtub. We talked to a professional who said it will fit fine with the caveat that the toilet will likely be the first thing you see in front of the door because of the current clearance requirements. 4. Build an addition. This again I think would be a very bad idea, since it would be blindingly expensive and the house is already on the higher side of square footage for the surrounding area. We will of course fix everything that is broken. The interior doors are the original 50s doors, hollow core dark wood look with lots of scuffs and holes, and they were cut short to fit the now non-existent carpet, so I would qualify changing them as fixing what is broken (and they bug me every time I look at them... ). The windows are a perk; we are still divided on those. I tend toward option 1, while my husband is going for option 3, although he agrees we do not need another bathroom. The reason I feel ill equipped to make this decision is that I'm originally from Europe, and even after so many years here I feel mildly perplexed about the North American love affair with bathrooms. Our previous rental was built in the last ten years and had a huge ensuite which I didn't like. I found it hard to keep as clean as I thought it should be, and it was so large I felt as if I was doing my business in public. Given the bathroom pictures on Houzz, I'm clearly in a minority. Your comments help ensure that I don't miss anything that might otherwise be obvious, so thanks again. And extra thanks to whoever makes it to the end of this post...

I wouldn't say "grief" but it made our life extremely uncomfortable. The root cause was a damaged insulation around shower threshold. We didn't notice any signs like mold or specific smell until guy from the termite inspection found dropped pieces of subfloor in our crawl space. The only positive outcome from this disaster is our decision to lower subfloor and get rid of threshold entirely. It's not a big deal when you build a new house but could be quite challenging in the existing one. We invited a structural engineer to evaluate our floor support structure and luckily he suggested a solution the would allow lowering subfloor by adding additional reinforcement joists.

I have the Kathryn or a Kohler sink that is almost identical to it. When I was bathroom sink shopping I wanted that style - undermount squarish look but there were some slight differences in sizes and so I am not certain which of the very similar Kohler sinks I wound up with - in the end I would have been fine with any of them. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I don't find it more difficult to clean or have hairs or toothpaste or other gunk adhering to the sides more than the standard rounded bowl I had prior to my remodel. I don't know where some of this advice comes from - my kitchen sink isn't oval shaped and certainly gets more crap in it in one day than a bathroom sink and both are equally easy to maintain without crap adhering to the sides. In terms of looks I think the sink is very neutral looking and can go either way depending on the other design elements.